Topic: Video Cards  (Read 2180 times)

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Offline Commander La'ra

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Video Cards
« on: April 11, 2007, 10:13:33 am »
About to get a new PC.  It'll probably be from an evil corporation, so I'll need extra graphics horsepower for a PCI Express slot.

Any suggestions?
"Dialogue from a play, Hamlet to Horatio: 'There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy.' Dialogue from a play written long before men took to the sky. There are more things in heaven and earth, and in the sky, than perhaps can be dreamt of. And somewhere in between heaven, the sky, the earth, lies the Twilight Zone."
                                                                 ---------Rod Serling, The Last Flight

Offline The_Joker

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Re: Video Cards
« Reply #1 on: April 11, 2007, 10:21:01 am »
How much you going to want be willing to spend, and one or two PCI slots?
"Look at him now, poor fellow. That's what a dose of reality does for you... Never touch the stuff myself, you understand. Find it gets in the way of the hallucinations."

Offline Commander La'ra

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Re: Video Cards
« Reply #2 on: April 11, 2007, 01:01:55 pm »
Well, the model I'm looking at only has one PCI Express slot, but two or three normal PCI.  Cost wise, looking at about a 200 dollar upper limit, though I'd rather come in a bit lower than that.
"Dialogue from a play, Hamlet to Horatio: 'There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy.' Dialogue from a play written long before men took to the sky. There are more things in heaven and earth, and in the sky, than perhaps can be dreamt of. And somewhere in between heaven, the sky, the earth, lies the Twilight Zone."
                                                                 ---------Rod Serling, The Last Flight

Offline Javora

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Re: Video Cards
« Reply #3 on: April 11, 2007, 03:26:26 pm »
Looking for something like this maybe:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814143049


I think you can find better options out there but it will be in this ball park somewhere.  I would stick with nVidia right now, they seem to be out performing ATI/AMD in that part of the market.  One thing about it is that you can upgrade to another video card later since you have a PCIe slot.  So if you feel that you need to upgrade later you won't be losing a whole lot of money with a card like the one above.  Hope this helps.

Offline Commander La'ra

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Re: Video Cards
« Reply #4 on: April 11, 2007, 04:08:23 pm »
Actually, yeah, that helps a lot.  Thanks, Javora. :)
"Dialogue from a play, Hamlet to Horatio: 'There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy.' Dialogue from a play written long before men took to the sky. There are more things in heaven and earth, and in the sky, than perhaps can be dreamt of. And somewhere in between heaven, the sky, the earth, lies the Twilight Zone."
                                                                 ---------Rod Serling, The Last Flight

Offline The_Joker

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Re: Video Cards
« Reply #5 on: April 11, 2007, 05:18:26 pm »
I agree with Javora.  The 7600gt is going to get you the best bang for the buck, plus its inexpensive enough that you won't feel bad if you get the urge to replace it with a DX10 card when the price comes down.
"Look at him now, poor fellow. That's what a dose of reality does for you... Never touch the stuff myself, you understand. Find it gets in the way of the hallucinations."

Offline NJAntman

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Re: Video Cards
« Reply #6 on: April 12, 2007, 09:06:17 am »
Be careful if buying from the evil corporation that begins with "De" and ends with "ll". I recently bought a new barebones system with PCI-E graphics from a 2nd tier internet site because in researching the great deals I found a major problem with Dell graphics.

The Dells are underpowered (often only 300-350W) which cannot handle some types of tandem PCI-E cards. Certain types of PCI_E cards running in tandem need to have the second card directly powered from the case power supply, which means a special power connector and a lot more than 300-350W. Also if its NVidia there is a physical data bridge needed to run tandem cards that means both cards need to be on slots a fixed distance apart.ATI doesn't use a physical bridge.
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Offline The_Joker

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Re: Video Cards
« Reply #7 on: April 12, 2007, 10:27:03 am »
There's only one PCI-E graphics slot, so running two cards in tandem is out of the question, however, good call on the power requirements.  There are a few cards now adays that would need extra power just for one of them.
"Look at him now, poor fellow. That's what a dose of reality does for you... Never touch the stuff myself, you understand. Find it gets in the way of the hallucinations."

Offline Commander La'ra

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Re: Video Cards
« Reply #8 on: April 13, 2007, 04:15:27 pm »
The little experience I've had with Dell's was enough for me not to buy one. ;D
"Dialogue from a play, Hamlet to Horatio: 'There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy.' Dialogue from a play written long before men took to the sky. There are more things in heaven and earth, and in the sky, than perhaps can be dreamt of. And somewhere in between heaven, the sky, the earth, lies the Twilight Zone."
                                                                 ---------Rod Serling, The Last Flight

Offline Elvis

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Re: Video Cards
« Reply #9 on: April 19, 2007, 05:54:34 pm »
Be careful if buying from the evil corporation that begins with "De" and ends with "ll". I recently bought a new barebones system with PCI-E graphics from a 2nd tier internet site because in researching the great deals I found a major problem with Dell graphics.

The Dells are underpowered (often only 300-350W) which cannot handle some types of tandem PCI-E cards. Certain types of PCI_E cards running in tandem need to have the second card directly powered from the case power supply, which means a special power connector and a lot more than 300-350W. Also if its NVidia there is a physical data bridge needed to run tandem cards that means both cards need to be on slots a fixed distance apart.ATI doesn't use a physical bridge.

Yes but if the motherboard is SLi capaable it will comew with the appropriate SLI bridge.